Suspicious packages in the United States: first person arrested

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Screenshot showing a police officer inspecting a van seized as part of the suspect package investigation, Plantation, Florida, October 26, 2018. WPLG / Handout via REUTERS

A first arrest was made this Friday, October 26 by the US federal police in the investigation of suspicious packages addressed to anti-Trump personalities.

" Someone is in detention. The Justice Ministry will hold a press conference at 2:30 pm (6:30 pm GMT), tweeted US Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores, without further details.

We can confirm one person in custody. We will hold a press conference at the Department of Justice at 2:30 pm ET.

According to US media reports, a man in his fifties was arrested Friday morning in Florida. This arrest took place in the parking lot of a spare parts store in Plantation, north of Miami. The television stations showed federal agents boarding a white van covered with a blue tarp.

This is the first arrest since the start of the investigation into suspicious packages sent to anti-Trump figures, including former Democratic President Barack Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton 2016 or yet the actor Robert de Niro, fierce critic of the American president.

This Friday again, packages were sent to former US intelligence chief James Clapper and Senator Cory Booker, a Democratic candidate for the US presidential election of 2020. In total, 12 suspicious packages have been found since Monday.

No gear has exploded, but significant resources have been mobilized to get their hands on the author or authors of these shipments, which have raised the tension in the run-up to the mid-term elections of 6 November.

Trump deplores the impact on Republican "dynamics"

Donald Trump hailed " the incredible work " of the federal police. Earlier, on Twitter, the US president deplored the impact of the case of suspicious packages sent, in the middle of the electoral campaign, to many of his political opponents, judging that it harmed the " dynamic " of the candidates of the his side. " Republicans have good numbers in advance polls and polls, and now this 'Bomb' story is popping up and the dynamics are slowing down, " he wrote.

Republicans are doing so well in the early voting, and at the polls, and now this "Bomb" stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!

The use of quotation marks to talk about homemade bombs suggests that the US president is minimizing the threat. By Wednesday, right-wing commentators had propagated a conspiracy theory that these packages were fake, intended to tip the balance in favor of the Democrats in parliamentary elections.

(With AFP)